The figure represents a year-on-year hike of 27.5%, while the majority of ad dollars will be directed at the rise of mobile video bought via social media platforms, but the readiness to spend on the channel comes despite video placements posing an everyday risk for brand safety.

WARC reports that one in 10 placements pose a “negative adjacency” risk for brands. In a recent and high-profile example, chocolate maker Mars pulled spend worth £5m from YouTube when a pre-roll ad for a product was placed on a music video allegedly tied to criminal activity.

With the report suggesting that marketers are largely unperturbed by such shortfalls among platforms, WARC’s data director, James McDonald, told AdWeek that the burden of responsibility falls with social media platforms which “have offered brands assurances but who are still coming up short.”

“Indeed, it’s the advertisers who have instigated change in this area and forced the hand of the major players to clean up their acts. Reach and targeting are of little value if the context is not correct,” he added.

Furthermore, a new report by Sizmek today revealed that four in 10 brands deliver ads on unsafe sites as a result of not having any third-party brand safety solution in place.

But the online advertising industry is, at least, taking some steps in right direction. The same study found that 90% of advertisers plan to increase brand safety efforts in the next 12 months, indicating a shift in priorities. Initiatives such as the IAB’s ads.txt standard, meanwhile, combat fraud through domain spoofing, and allow advertisers to buy inventory exclusively from certified publishers.

Brand safe or not, though, a forecasted spend of close to $30bn would account for around 17.5% of the overall $170bn (£132bn) expected to be spent on all video advertising. That’s compared to just over 1% in 2010, and it will continue to see a rise with online video consumption expected to grow from 66.5 minutes per day to 84.1 in 2020.

Acutely aware of this developing opportunity, Facebook just this week rolled out a toolset for simple, mobile-ready video ads, letting advertisers create basic videos from available creative in just a few minutes.

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About the author

Mark manages all aspects of editorial on MarketingTech as Editor, including reporting on the fast-paced world of digital marketing and curating the site’s network of expert industry contributions.
Originally from Plymouth, Mark studied in Reading and London, eventually earning his Master's in Digital Journalism, and most previously covered goings-on in the idiosyncratic world of performance marketing for PerformanceIN.